It’s really hard to admit that your father is a narcissist.
We often deny such a hard truth because it’s a hard-to-swallow pill.
But denying the truth won’t make the situation any better or different.
Denial only paves the way for more toxicity in your relationship with your narcissistic dad.
A narcissistic dad, especially a pathological one, is a possessive person who constantly makes every situation about him.
The whole family revolves around him, and he constantly seeks attention and domination.
While your dad might not be a pathological narcissist, it’s still hard to deal with a person with narcissistic traits.
The worst impact a narcissistic father can have on you is lowering your sense of worth, making you grow up with low self-esteem.
So, how can you escape the toxic trap of a narcissistic dad and still maintain your psychological integrity?
This is what you’ll find out in this video.
Number 1: Make peace with yourself first.
If one of your parents is a narcissist, it’s very likely that you have some issues with your self-esteem.
Having issues with your self-image can be a symptom of years of exposure to your narcissistic father's toxic behavior and emotional manipulation.
When you acknowledge that your self-image is actually distorted because you tend to see yourself through the lens of your father, you experience an epiphany.
While the hurt and negative feelings might still be there, at least you can make peace with yourself.
Like any other psychological issue, the first step is usually recognition.
When you recognize that the circumstances where you grew up are the main reason your self-worth is low, you put yourself in a favorable situation that enables you to transcend the negativity.
It’s still hard to develop effective strategies to confront your father’s narcissism, but as a first step, making peace with yourself is quite effective.
You are your only ally, and making peace with yourself allows you to prioritize your well-being.
You shouldn’t jeopardize your mental well-being because of your toxic attachment to your narcissistic father; it’s your happiness against your father’s never-ending, self-centered bombardment.
So, start with yourself!
Make peace with yourself and recognize your self-worth and sovereignty as an individual.
Number 2: Be empathetic.
We can say a lot of horrible things about narcissistic fathers and all of them will click with you because they describe your dad quite accurately, but at the end of the day, he’s still your father, and you have 50% of his DNA.
While denial is bad in the case of having a narcissistic parent, blame is also not a good strategy.
After all, your father didn’t choose to be a narcissist; he might’ve had the choice to act less narcissistically on many occasions and saved you a lot of unnecessary issues, but narcissistic personality disorder is a rough mental disorder that often hurts the sufferer more than his loved ones.
Being empathetic with your narcissistic father doesn’t mean not confronting him when his behavior is hurting you.
What it means is being more mature in your approach.
Deep down inside of your dad, he loves you and wants the best for you.
It’s just that his disorder is more powerful than his love at times.
So, being more sympathetic and loving, even when you’re confronting your father, allows you to have the upper hand in arguments.
We often confront people who wrong us either with aggression or by yielding and accepting defeat.
Both strategies force us to be stuck in a loop of toxicity.
The only way to get out of the loop is by transcending it.
Instead of feeling like the underdog that has to put up with your father’s toxic narcissism, you become the empathetic person who recognizes that your dad has some really bad issues that he has to deal with, and you’re there to offer love and support as long as it doesn’t compromise your mental health.
Number 3: Set Your boundaries and guard them.
Setting boundaries starts with making you recognize that his authority over you has limits.
As a self-sovereign individual, there are some areas in your personal life that your father has no business to middle with.
While it might be difficult to assert your boundaries and guard them at first, the more you’re successful in doing so , the more you gain more independence from the sphere of narcissism that your father has dragged you into.
Some narcissistic fathers fail to recognize that their children are not an extension of themselves, which makes it hard to escape their emotional manipulation.
If that’s your case, you have to assert where your individuality starts and your parent-child relationship stops, especially if you’re an adult.
Past a certain stage in life, parents become less of an authority figure and become more like fellow human beings who just happen to be related to us by blood.
That doesn’t mean that you should be rude to your father; it’s more like fostering more respect from one human to another human.
Number 4: Distinguish which type of narcissist your father is.
Generally speaking, there are two clusters of narcissistic parents: vulnerable narcissists and grandiose narcissists.
While grandiose narcissists are easily recognizable because you can’t help but notice their bombastic persona, vulnerable narcissists are kinda hard to recognize.
If your father is a vulnerable narcissist, he would go to great lengths to appear as the guy sacrificing everything in his life and biting all the bullets just so you can enjoy being who you are.
This type of father craves attention and recognition more than grandiose narcissists, which makes it quite difficult to avoid him.
Part of what makes it hard to deal with this kind of father is the feeling of guilt and shame that accompanies doing anything that might hurt their feelings.
The trick that the vulnerable narcissistic father plays on you is making you feel indebted to him and all the sacrifices he made for your sake.
To overcome that trap, you’ll have to acknowledge the fact that people, especially good parents, do their duties because that’s what life is all about.
Good parents take care of their children because that’s what humans are hardwired to do.
In other words, your father made many sacrifices for your sake, but that doesn’t mean he owns your life because of that.
You should be grateful for all that he did.
However, at the same time, you shouldn’t feel ashamed if you had to take some time away from the pity traps of your father and his emotional manipulation.
Number 5: Consider seeing a therapist.
Past a certain threshold, psychological issues you develop from your relationship with your father can be dealt with only with the help of a professional.
Part of what made psychology develop in the late 19th and early 20th centuries is the study of the parent-child relationship.
Therefore, there’s plenty of research that therapists rely on to mitigate the damage developed from all sorts of father-child interactions and situations.
From the Oedipus complex of Dr. Freud to the Electra complex of Dr. Jung, psychoanalysis has many concepts that psychoanalysts use to understand the dynamics of the unhealthy psyche of a child of a pathological parent.
To put it simply, consider seeing a therapist if you feel like the situation with your father is more than your psyche can handle.
Therapy will give you some mental tools that will allow you to integrate the unconscious patterns of your pathological relationship with your father and have more control over your perception and reactions.
Number 6. Take care of yourself.
Self-care is the best strategy to overcome the psychological hardship of having a narcissistic father.
Self-care ranges from taking time off to relax to gaining financial independence.
When you care about yourself properly, which includes focusing on your health and fostering life-affirming habits, you develop a better attitude towards yourself.
Part of what makes having a narcissistic father a difficult matter is the accompanying low self-esteem that you develop due to his pathological impact on your personality.
When you develop self-esteem because you’re capable of taking care of yourself properly, you begin to slowly stop depending on your father’s influence on you.
Narcissistic fathers often have the power they assert on their children because the children depend on them financially.
Your father might unconsciously defeat your natural instinct to seek independence and become able to provide for yourself financially and fulfill yourself emotionally to keep you a slave to his demon of narcissism.
In that case, the challenge might be a little bit hard for you, but that shouldn’t stop you from putting yourself as a priority.
While being altruistic should be the natural state of affairs when dealing with family members, one can only be altruistic when there’s a surplus of value after ensuring self-fulfillment.
You can’t give something you lack, especially attention and emotional engagement, to a narcissistic father who constantly needs to validate himself even if the cost is ruining your opportunity to be able to take care of yourself.
There’s so much you can put up with, especially for the sake of your parents.
But, any healthy parent would know that their children have to develop self-worth and become independent.
If your father fails to recognize that fact, that means only one thing , it’s up to you to encourage yourself and derive your motivation to break free from your father’s clutches.
So, put having a healthy life as a priority.
Dealing with a narcissistic father is easier when you know your self-worth and have a healthy attitude towards life.
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